Some love too little
by JTheGoblinKing
Summary: A story inspired by scenes from the 2009 movie Dorian Gray


Some love too little:

Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction based on the film Dorian Gray inspired by the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Title quote from The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. Warning: Some of this might not make sense unless you have seen the film with Ben Barnes. I chose to make this story about the film incarnation of Dorian Gray from the 2009 film from Momentum Pictures because I wouldn't dream of writing a sequel to a work of classic literature written by a genius like Oscar Wilde. There is no way I could successfully replicate his style and I would rather not try. The Picture of Dorian Gray belongs to Oscar Wilde. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is by Oscar Wilde. The film Dorian Gray is by Momentum Pictures. I own nothing.

Some love too little:

'Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.' - The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

* * *

1

'Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!'

The piano recital had been a mistake. What little it could have done to reclaim his status and pose of generous, young philanthropist had fallen to ashes. First with the outburst in the audience and then by his own weakness and cowardice. Dorian reasoned that conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

When he had seen the pale, bloodied figure of Basil seated to the far back of the theatre he was impressed with himself that he had not screamed though he was certain that everyone there had seen the look of horror upon his face. To see Basil there, wearing his bloodied yellow scarf. The figure of Basil was still wearing his black suit with white shirt that he had worn to the crush before Dorian and he had their 'talk' and Basil had learned the horrible secret of his portrait.

The painting Basil had made of him out of ...love? It had been tainted. When Dorian had offered up his soul to remain forever young he had not thought that anyone or anything had heard him but the horrible truth was fast revealed to him. For every sin and misdeed he committed the painting would grow uglier and uglier, reflecting the state of his very soul. And he, Dorian Gray, would remain unblemished, always forever young and beautiful.

Dorian had lost his nerve at the recital. Seeing Basil there, as clearly no one else could, had left him shaken. He looked down at his hands, which felt as if they had been dipped into warm jam. The hot, sticky substance that was all over his palms and fingers and dripping onto the piano keys... Basil's blood.

The horrible, crimson fluid glittered in the light. It told the truth as Dorian, himself, never could. He could not run from who or what he was or what he had done. He could not hide all of the pain inside. When he looked at the world with his empty eyes the night would come with no dawn to follow.

This was a delusion. It had to be. It was madness and now everyone was staring at him. Dorian felt he had to get away from there as quickly as possible.

Why was he being singled out by the spirits of the dead? Was he mad? Was it only in his imagination? He wanted to get away from there and fast. Surely there were worse men out there than he. And hadn't it once been said that each man kills the thing he loves. Some literally did it as an act of violence while others destroyed the capacity to love in others. Some could destroy a romance with a bitter look. And some could seduce with flattery. But it was still true. Humanity was it's own worst enemy when it came to matters of love.

Was Sibyl to haunt him next? Dear, sweet Sibyl, whom he had wronged so utterly...

Some men destroy the love of others or within themselves when they are young. And others do it when they are old. Some love too little. And some don't know how to let go. Love and lust blended into one for Dorian. Both could easily be bought.

And yet not every man was punished for destroying that which he claimed to love. Not every man died. They don't always die a death of shame on a day of dark disgrace. They don't always stand with a noose around their neck with a cloth upon their faces. They don't always drop into empty darkness.

And then there was the worry of James Vane. He imagined James Vane waiting to kill him for the death of Sibyl. James Vane waiting in the darkness to slit his throat to avenge the fact that he held Dorian accountable for Sibyl's suicide. He was not sure if he was guilty of it or not but it was the one deed he loathed to face. It was the thing for which he actually did feel shame. He felt he deserved James' wrath

Could he even die if you slit his throat? Dorian did not know. It was very likely he would only die if the painting was destroyed but he certainly was not about to take that risk and make that gamble on his own life.

2

'Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.'

Dorian had betrayed him. Basil knew it as it was happening. He had been murdered by the man he loved. How could a night where such sweet bliss of finally experiencing such exquisite intimacy with Dorian could be followed by such coldness and now... And now this?

It's often said that good things come to those who wait and he had waited for so long... He had kept all of his desires repressed and locked up inside because the world could never accept them and now it seemed he was paying the ultimate price for his infatuation.

It seemed that the terrible pain was endless. Basil tried to breathe in but no air seemed able to reach his lungs. It was as if the air was refusing to go down. Air was leaving but none seemed able to enter. It was like drowning and yet there was no water. He recalled, as a child, falling in to a river and struggling to keep his head above water and failing. Someone had to dive in to save him. There would be no rescue this time. No sweet catching of breath...

Unable to speak, choking and gagging on his own blood as he stared up, helplessly at Dorian's cold expression. Was this really the young man he had loved? Where was the goodness he had seen in his heart? Where was all that potential? Had he caused this? That was his painting on that wall... now hideous.

The pain of the sharp object sliding behind his ear. The horrible sensation of drowning in thick, warm salt water... But there was no water and he knew what the fluid was as it poured into his throat from the jagged wound. He reached for his throat.

The pain was intense but the sharp object had side in at such an angle that he was scarcely sure where the original wound actually was. His throat burned. The back, right side of his head had been in agony.

He wanted to plead, to say something but the capacity had been lost. No sound would come. Whether this was simply because the blood was blocking his air passage or because the vocal cords had been severed, he couldn't tell. He could hear the sickening gurgle of his own blood in his throat in his ears as he struggled to try to scream but could not.

He could taste the sour taste of his own blood in his mouth. Metallic, and unpleasant. Like water that had been mixed with copper. He wanted to turn on his side to try to cough it up but he could barely move. Everything was in agony.

At first he had thought Dorian might show mercy when he drew the sharp thing out that had been stabbed in his throat but the cold, hard expression upon Dorian's features told him otherwise. And Basil Hallward knew he was going to die...

Basil felt he had been naive. Naive to trust Dorian. Naive to be deceived by appearances. In Dorian's youthfulness he thought he had seen... Such light, such beautiful innocence and light. And now that light was extinguished...

It took several minutes to finally die. And he felt every agonizing moment in a vague sort of half-sleep. The jagged, broken triangle of mirror glass plunging into his chest. The sharp pain as it dove, with the force of Dorian's weight, into his body...

Basil was not sure what was happening. He could recall feeling as if he was rising up and out of himself. There was a strange sense of being everywhere and no where all at once. A weightless sensation and a strange sort of keen awareness of all things within the vicinity. It was not actual sight or hearing. It was just an awareness.

He was aware of Dorian hacking apart his body. He was witnesses to it as surely as if he had physical eyes but he lacked all things physical. He was just more or less a presence. He could detect what was happening but it was not precisely what one might call sight and sound and yet he was keenly aware of what was going on even though he was deprived of all five physical senses. He was aware.

He watched with cold horror and a strange sort of detached fascination as Dorian got rid of his body into the River Themes.

The years passed and Basil just observed Dorian's activities. Dorian had left London shortly after his, Basil's, body had been discovered. At witness to some of Dorian's behaviour, if Basil was able to wince he would have. And as the years passed Basil fell into a quiet despair. Why was he still lingering here? He did not quite feel the passage of time but he was witness to it. Why did he feel compelled to watch Dorian? Wasn't it bad enough to have been a victim of such betrayal of his love?

He must have been deceiving himself. All that beauty he thought he saw in Dorian, all that light... perhaps it was wrong of him to assume it was there. Perhaps he had imagined Dorian's purity because he had wanted it to be there. He had allowed himself to be drawn in by the pretty face and all the rest was illusion. Dorian had not just taken his life. He had also robbed him of all of his precious illusions. And he was heart broken...

When Dorian returned to London Basil was with him, silently, unseen, still watching his murderer with grief and sorrow. How strange it was that anger was not present. Just a desperate desire to understand the reason why.

When Dorian had gone to play piano to support the troupes just starting to return from World War 1 Basil felt an intense sort of passion. It was all too reminiscent of the first time he saw Dorian Gray, when Dorian had still seemed so innocent. He recalled sitting there in the audience, compelled to draw the beautiful figure before him.

The audience was much smaller this time and Dorian's masquerade of purity seemed lost. Many eyes looked upon him with cold suspicion and mistrust. The music was different, a little more bouncy and modern. Basil had only heard the word in passing. Was this what they called Ragtime?

Perhaps it was the intensity of the music or maybe it was the familiarity of the situation of seeing Dorian on the stage playing the piano but whatever the cause might have been Basil felt a sort of intensity he had not known since the day Dorian had killed him. It was as if the energy in the very air was pulling toward him.

Basil imagined himself seated in the back of the concert hall. He thought of himself seated in the chair. He thought of how he would look, the fine details of folds in his jacket. Even his yellow scarf. But upon looking at Dorian all he could think of was the agony of his own death. He could almost feel the blood trickling on the side of his face and neck as if he had been laying in it. The dampness of blood on his scarf as it hung over his shoulders.

To Basil's surprised Dorian was staring directly at him! Not at the pretty girl, Emily, Lord Henry's young daughter who sat a few aisles in front of him and closer to the middle of the room. No, Dorian was looking at him. Could he actually see him? No one else seemed able to. Perhaps it was the bond of Dorian having been his killer but Dorian was looking directly at him.

The falsely innocent boy was pale as a sheet. His large, expressive eyes were wide with horror. He had lost his place in the song.

Basil opened his mouth to try to say something for Dorian to hear. And there were so many things he wanted to say to him... No sound came. To Basil's own frustration not a sound passed his lips. He might have managed to make himself seem like a physical being but he really wasn't. And in remembering his own death there also came the remembrance of the wounds he had suffered. He wasn't in any pain but it was as if the stabbing had just happened and all capacity to speak was lost. He had died choking on his own blood with a sharp object reaching through his neck, quite possibly having hit his vocal cords. He did not know. He just knew that he could not make a sound.

Was he doomed to this eternal, lonely silence? Only seen on rare occasions by the very man who had killed him and completely unable to speak? Only seen by he man whose bargain with a demonic force had left him eternally beautiful? And yet... so very ugly on the inside...

Perhaps he would feel whole and healed if he was only able to cross over. Basil was not sure what waited for him on other side, whether it was Heaven or Hell or reincarnation, but he felt if he could get where he belonged he would somehow be whole again. But he couldn't... No great light had appeared to him. No mystical portal or door way. There had been no angels. There had been no Saint Peter. There had been no sudden rebirth. There had been no great and sudden enlightenment as he became one with the universe. No. Instead there had just been... Dorian.

Basil had always been fascinated by the beliefs in Buddhism that he had read so much about. Now he was completely uncertain of what he believed in. This certainly wasn't anything any Christian Sunday School had talked about.

He had been taken to the edge of darkness. He had followed the road to it's hiding place. What sort of magick had taken hold when Dorian Gray had started his fall from grace? There was no stairway to the light. There was no answer that Heaven knew. and Dorian stood for all time, tainted, like a golden rose. A real rose is soft and fragrant. it only bloomed for a short while but it was precious because it did not last. A rose plated in gold is eternally beautiful, it will never change, but it loses it's softness. And it's really dead under the gold. That's what Dorian was. Dorian Gray was a golden rose.

Like Dorian own real garden it was as if the world had become a place where all the flowers were perfect and poisonous... A garden of beautiful and deadly tropical flowers, that was the world to Dorian Gray. Superficial beauty hiding something dark and deadly.

Under all the illusions and disguises Basil saw the truth of Dorian's masquerade.

There was so much he wanted to tell him. Would he forever be trapped like this? Neither here nor there? He felt like he was on the dark side of the glass on the edge of an abyss. He was the outsider looking in on a world he could never be a part of again.

He stared into Dorian's eyes. He wanted Dorian to see what he had caused him, to understand the pain he had suffered. If only Dorian could see what he had done and feel it for what it had been, the cruelty and brutality of it. He wanted Dorian to be made to feel what he was feeling. He wanted to reveal to him the exact agony of his slow and painful death. The humiliation and degradation of knowing his hacked apart remains had been tossed into the river like so much rubbish.

To want Dorian to pay for what he had done was like a need he could not deny and yet... And yet there was something else he desired too. The tender touch of a once innocent and uncorrupted boy. He could forgive everything if only... if only Dorian could somehow repent and learn to love again. Had he ever been able to love?

All of Basil's hopes and dreams had been lost forever thanks to Dorian. And now they would forever have to go unspoken even by him. All possible future art now lost forever to the world. Why couldn't Dorian understand?

If Dorian had just loved him and not betrayed that love he would have given him anything. He would have revealed all of his secrets to him. He would have earned the right to know him as no other man could ever know him. If only Dorian had been honest in that brief intimacy they had shared before his death. If only Dorian really did return all of his longings.

Then his, Basil's, invisible shackles would be broken. Not word would need to be spoken. He felt dizzy looking at the deceptively young looking man. How he ached. It seemed that Dorian would never understand. If only he could understand...

If he only could reach Dorian, speak to him somehow, make him face his guilt, perhaps Dorian could repent. Perhaps Dorian could be forgiven. Then maybe everything would be all right. That was the only dream Basil had left, that tiny spark of hope for Dorian's capacity for goodness. Perhaps it was silly. Perhaps it was futile but it was still there.

If only Dorian could know the things he longed to say. If only he could understand. He wanted Dorian to notice the pain in his eyes. The look of hurt and betrayal stamped upon his intellectual expression.

Frustration mounted. This was all Dorian's fault! His blood was on Dorian's hands!

If only he could speak. There were so many things he longed to say. If only he could make Dorian know how he felt. If only there was a way to convey this mad rage that was building. The silence of this pitiful, non-physical existence was frustrating. It maddened him. The only thing that made it bearable was time didn't seem to move quite as it did for humans. There was no perception of weariness, no real sense that it was passing. He just... was.

Suddenly, more clearly than with words he had spoken to his frightened murderer.

Dorian looked down at his hands and he saw upon them Basil's blood. It was as fresh as the day he had killed him. Basil's blood upon his palms and dripping through his fingers as surely as it did in the hideous portrait locked away in the attic.

Dorian could feel the weight of the heavy old key against his chest. It hung on a chain about his neck. The only key to the attic room where he stored the portrait of himself.

In that instant it seemed that time had stopped moving.

In his youth Dorian had suffered greatly at the hands of his grandfather, Lord Kelso. Lord Kelso had beaten him with the cruelly shaped, yet dull tip of his cane. It had cleaved the flesh away. For months Dorian had been unable to sleep on his back. This made simply resting difficult as his stomach bothered him if he laid on his belly for too long.

He was the unwanted member of his family. His mother had died because of him. That's what his grandfather had always told him. He was the product of love and death. Everything he touched was destined to die, whether or not he meant for it to come about that way.

Dorian's father had died before he was born and since his mother had 'married beneath her' and to someone of a lower class, it was often suspected that Dorian's mother's father, Dorian's own grandfather had his father murdered. Lord Henry had believed it was Typhoid but Dorian was not so sure. And there were whispers of foul play.

Dorian was certain that his Grandfather saw his, Dorian's father, in him. In his appearance and manner. Dorian was the constant reminder of Lord Kelso's inability to control his impetuous daughter and the embarrassment of her class betrayal. Dorian was certain his grandfather hated him and viewed him as ugly. His grandfater, he was certain, had been embarrassed of him.

Though Dorian spent a good chunk of his young adult life in the country before his grandfather's death his early youth (as with his life after his grandfather's death) had been in London. But Dorian's early childhood in London had not been a happy one. He had spent most of the time locked in the attic. His nursery, his class room, his play room and his prison. His grandfather had felt embarrassed by him and did not want anyone to see him.

Dorian had spent most of his time locked in there, only visited to be fed or beaten. It wasn't until after his back was already badly scarred that he was finally raised by a well paid but sadly emotionally detached governess in the country. Far away from his grandfather who would have surely killed him if given the chance.

Dorian had never known a mother's love. He had been born in grief and raised in hatred. He had been helpless to defy his fate. Guilty of the sin of his very birth. A child who had only known pain and suffering at the hands of those that should have kissed him and cradled him when he cried. Dorian had lived in a cold, dark world of a single dank room, locked away from the rest of the world. There were times in his youth where he thought he would surely die.

Now Dorian spent his years in fancy lace and silk with a pretty face that hid so much. His very body bore a telling tale.

Inside of Dorian there lived someone who could have been somebody's husband, who could have seen his children grow, who would have had a normal life. He could have easily loved a woman or man and felt their kisses deep and moist, instead he just gave in to lust simply because it was all he had ever really known or understood. When Basil had loved him he had not recognized it for what it was. Or in all of his deeply seeded cynicism he had thought Basil had only judged him by his appearance as others had before. The goodness Basil claimed to see was probably just because of his seemingly innocent expression and had nothing to do with real goodness at all.

He never heard the bells on Sunday, pealing in the Church of God. He could have easily loved a simple thing like a rainy day. Instead he had to fear the destruction of a wretched painting that was bound to his very soul.

Walking down the aisle with a lovely bride, a family, the pleasures of romance... these were experiences, that for all of Dorian's quests to experience everything and anything, he was denied. The happiness that was stripped away for pleasures, Dorian would never have it. The innocent dreams of Dorian's youth had been torn apart long before he had ever sold his soul. There was so much he had taken for granted.

He thought of Sibyl and how he felt he had wronged her. The miracle that could have been his child... He would never have that chance. If only he had known. If only he had not listened to Lord Henry and yet, to that very day, he did listen to him. Lord Henry though had been naive. He never knew the true extent of Dorian's darkness.

The portrait, with it's cruel snarl, reflected Dorian's soul. The mirror with it's cruel laugh reflected Dorian's ageless face in taunting ways as if to say 'The past is not something you can leave behind.'

People would look at Dorian and think they saw who he really was but they could not see his soul. They would never really know him. And he resented all of them for it. Every day it was if he had to play a part. It was as if life had become a great masquerade for him. And if he wore his mask of deceptive youth and beauty he could fool the world but he could not fool himself or that portrait. He did not know who he was anymore. He last lost himself. Who was he now? He did not recognize his own reflection in the mirror. He saw the pretty youth but where was he? He thought of an old quote 'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth.' Must he pretend that he was someone else for all time? Why couldn't he be as beautiful inside? Why couldn't his heart be free. He burned with a need to know the reason why. Why did all people have to conceal what they think and what they feel? Must there always be a secret version of himself he had to hide, with our without an accursed painting? He did not want to pretend he was someone else for all time.

Basil looked into Dorian's eyes and as if by some miracle he understood all of this. He could see all of Dorian's soul. Not just the corruption, but the damage and the suffering. The grief and the guilt. And the lost little boy still deep inside. Basil saw all of Dorian's past and for a brief moment he thought he saw that goodness and light he had once believed in. That tiny spark, desperate to come out, to reveal itself.

Basil understood Dorian's loneliness and despair in having to hide who and what he really was to others. Basil had always been reserved and repressed in life. Hiding out in a world where he had to hide his heart- the things and people he loved. His forbidden infatuation with Dorian for example. How betrayed he had felt when Dorian had used that infatuation against him! Didn't Dorian understand it was more than just sex? He had been in love with him. He had loved a part of Dorian that Dorian, himself, had taken for granted or not even known was there... His humanity.

Basil understood. He had wanted to show Dorian what was in his heart and be loved for who he was.

For years people had shaken Dorian's hand and wished him well but for all their patronizing smiles his deceptive youth had been a prison cell. They looked at Dorian and what they saw was a perfect, unassuming gentlemen. And yet now they were starting to see Dorian for what he was under the mask.

They were finally starting to see the truth. They saw through is deception and straight through to the disgrace underneath. Dorian's evil was as plain as the hideously scarred portrait locked away in the attic. How strange that the very place where Dorian's childhood had been locked away was now where he hid away the reflection of his very soul.

Disgrace, outrage, and shame... Dorian was no longer welcome amongst many members of polite society now. There was so much gossip about him now. He loved the gossip about others but his own scandals lacked novelty.

He had asked for trouble the moment he had arrived in London. And hadn't he become the agitator? The one to instigate and cause things to happen? He had made debutants into prostitutes, blackmailing friends and former lovers, driving old acquaintances to suicide, and so many seductions of the young and naive...

But his first sin had been committed before he had ever arrived in London. It was the sin of being an outsider among the wealthy elite. He might have been the grandson of an unpopular Lord in Lord Kelso but he was also a relative unknown. And people are quick to mistrust the outsider. He had never really been one of them.

More than once he had lied and deceived all of them, including Lord Henry. And now they were not so blind to his true nature, to the darkness within.

The murderer and murdered stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. No one else could see Basil silently sitting there or the crimson blood dripping through Dorian's fingers onto the ivory keys of the piano.

Dorian had hastily excused himself and left the concert hall in a mad rush. The girl, Emily, had followed...

3

'Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.'

The miracle unfolded before Basil's eyes. And there was a private sort of envy. If only it had been he to instigate it. Emily was working a change in Dorian. She was causing Dorian to care about someone other than himself. Dorian was in love at last.

Basil felt ridiculous, as if he was pining for his own murderer. Perhaps he had been disturbed when he as alive or maybe he was just a fool. He watched with aw and fascination as Dorian's relationship with Emily bloomed.

It seemed the cold, cruelty in Dorian was starting to melt away and the innocent boy was slowly starting to re-emerge. Perhaps Basil had been right all along. Maybe there was good still in Dorian's heart, that spark he had seen. It was that goodness more than actual physical beauty that had caused Basil to paint his portrait in the form of such a gorgeous creature. Basil had painted the reflection of what he saw in Dorian, the good man inside. Perhaps he, Basil, had initiated the curse of the portrait all along. He painted what he saw in Dorian's soul (or what he wanted there to be in Dorian's soul) and in doing so he had fused the soul and portrait together. Dorian's misdeeds had corrupted the painting into something hideous because Dorian's soul was becoming more and more hideous. But maybe, just maybe it wasn't too late...

The confrontation with Lord Henry had been brutal and terrible to witness. Lord Henry had found out the truth about Dorian and gained access to the Hellish attic room where the hideous portrait had been stored. Dorian had found him. He had attempted to kill Lord Henry to keep his secret a hidden. Basil would have winced if he was a physical being and not just this discorporate awareness. How could he ever hope to redeem himself while attempting to kill the father of the woman he loved? Surely if Dorian truly loved her he'd understand that if you truly love someone you cannot bring yourself to harm those you love or do anything that would bring them suffering. Nothing could possibly bring more suffering to Emily than if Dorian had succeeded in killing her father.

Real love is selfless. But poor Dorian had never really known real love, had he?

There was a struggle. Lord Henry had seen the portrait. He deliberately had left it a blaze and raced out of the attic room and down the stairs. When he reached the door at the bottom of the stairs he took a hold of the iron grated door just outside of the regular wood door and threw it shut, locking Dorian behind him.

Basil was surprised at how the drama unfolded. Dorian did have enough time to escape but he did not do it. Why? Perhaps he meant to sacrifice himself as an act of penance?

He was witness as Dorian stabbed the demonic portrait that seemed to snarl and lunge forward from it's canvas as if it meant to take shape as a separate living being manifested from all of Dorian's vices, acts of cruelty, selfishness, self-indulgence and hatred. All those negative feelings and deeds taking shape as a living being.

The flames were rising. Lord Henry had managed to get Emily away from the burning building by now.

When Dorian stabbed the painting he grew hideous. The wound to the painting's chest reached Dorian's and the blood seeped down his jacket.

Dorian lay sprawled on the ground dying. The demon was not quite dead yet. In fact, Basil watched as it emerged from the painting, the flames lapping at it.

Dorian was quite dead already. His spirit- his very essence seemed to gather as particles, like a cloud over the corpse and then it took shape. Such a strong will that Dorian already knew how to manifest into a human-like being, an illusion of being substance, there in limbo.

Dorian looked around in confusion, not yet aware that his eyes were only there because he perceived them to be there. He looked so frightened, so lost, so child-like again. It was like the boy Basil had known so long ago.

Dorian looked at Basil in a daze. There was the painter he had murdered, standing there before him. Whole and restored. 'Basil?'

Basil nodded and he attempted to speak. He was surprised when this time it seemed he had regained his voice. 'Yes, Dorian. I'm here.' Was this what he had needed to be restored?

The two souls stared at each other.

Basil felt such a glorious warmth toward Dorian. For so long Dorian had been blinded by his own selfishness and cruelty. Only recently did it seem that through the girl, Emily, Dorian was starting to see things as he should have all along. How could Dorian have ever hoped to be truly happy in a life lived strictly for pleasures? Basil had always known that pleasure was not the same as actual happiness.

Dorian had been so cold, closing his heart off from the rest of the world. He had been so consumed with his selfishness and materialism. He had spent no time with the emotions of love or regret. But everything had changed now. Dorian now seemed like such a frail, broken little thing. A wounded spirit that had only recently learned to love.

Basil felt a private pang of jealousy for Emily. He wished that it had been him to open up Dorian's heart. He wanted to reach out to Dorian and to ask him to give himself over to him. There was the strange, impending sense, that Dorian might be whisked away at any time. He wanted to hold Dorian. It seemed Dorian had been the key being whole again. He held no rancor toward Dorian now. All of their suffering was over with now. All of their grief was at last behind them, or so it seemed. The heart break that Basil had felt at Dorian's betrayal of him in killing him melted away. Love fluttered around them. All the hurt inside seemed to seep away. Basil no longer held any anger toward Dorian. He just wanted to be near him. The ice that had seemed to encircle Dorian's very soul had melted away. And now he was worthy of the love he so desperately needed.

The short moment of connection was broken abruptly as both spirits suddenly became sharply aware that there was something else with them. The hideous being, the living embodiment of all the evil of Dorian's soul had taken form. It snarled as a hideous, bald vestige of Dorian's sins, his hatred and cruelty, the selfishness and spite. It's teeth were snaggled. It's eyes were blood red. It's face was rotted. It's nose was caved in. It's fingers were like gnarled claws stained in blood.

The demon seemed to ripple and shift form. The hideous being became that of a hard faced old man. He carried a wicked looking cane in one hand. The other hand reached down for what looked like an expanse of chain. It took a form hold of the chain.

The chain ran across the floor to where Dorian's spirit stood and his body lay. The body was a hideous and mangled mess being lapped up by the flames. The flames could not touch the spirits or demon though. They were like a backdrop to a play that somehow passed through them. Even the light the flames cast could not reflect upon them.. They stood in an eerie light that wasn't present in the actual room. If a human saw them they would note that the shadowing around them was wrong.

Dorian's corrupted and damaged spirit was slowly regaining the look of humanity and beauty. It was a beauty that Dorian had once physically possessed but not inside. His sacrifice and his education of love had not been unrewarded though Dorian, himself, had not expected a reward for it.

The chain forked near the spirit of Dorian into four separate directions. Each attached to a manacle at Dorian's wrists, or shackles at his ankles.

The demon that had done all of this- had caused all of this- and now held Dorian's very soul ensnared was none other than Lord Kelso!

Lord Kelso (Dorian's Grandfather) had been the start of all of Dorian's rage and deeply seeded pain, as well as his dysfunction at being able to love. It was Lord Kelso who had left the horrible scars upon Dorian's back that Basil had seen so many years ago. Lord Kelso had started all of it. And even now he threatened to claim Dorian's very essence.

Basil would not stand for it. He refused. He did not hesitate. He did not doubt or question if what he was doing what was right. Dorian had already paid the ultimate price for the things he had done. He did not deserve to suffer at Kelso's hands for all eternity.

Basil reached out for Dorian's rapier. The thin sword had fallen before the painting which now showed nothing more than Dorian, as he had been, the painting Basil had actually painted. The youthful face was more than innocent. It was bright with goodness and light. A purity that even Dorian could not see.

Basil was surprised that he was able to hold the rapier in his hands. He had not been able to touch any physical thing in so long.

Dorian screamed. Lord Kelso had given the chains a sharp tug. He was moving back toward the painting. Basil was not sure how, but he knew, Lord Kelso meant to seal Dorian within it, forever. His hatred of Dorian had reached beyond the grave, transforming him into a terrible demon. It was Lord Kelso's spite and contempt that had caused Dorian's difficulties with expressing affection and trust. And it was Lord Kelso, the demonic presence of hatred and cruelty, that had bound Dorian to the portrait. The spiteful old man...

Lord Henry had been a naive fool. For all the poisonous philosophies of hedonism he had preached he had not believed half of it. And he had never really known, until it was too late, the extreme to which Dorian had taken all of his lessons. Lord Henry had been naive. Until very recently he had never even been able to believe that someone of their class could commit murder. But one thing Lord Henry had been right about. There was no limit to the cruelty of old men...

Basil sliced at the chains with the rapier, hoping they would give way. They did not. Dorian screamed again as he was dragged toward the portrait. He reached out in a desperate pleading toward Basil. Basil was frantic. He would not let Dorian suffer for all time.

Despite everything Dorian had done he had earned his redemption. He had finally learned to love another besides himself. He had finally, in letting Emily go, allowing Lord Henry to whisk her from the burning building, committed an act of selflessness and love. Dorian had given his life for the things he had done. He had suffered enough. Dorian had made Basil whole again, not by dying, but by revealing that he, Basil, had been right all along. There WAS good in his heart. He had not been wrong. The beauty he had seen within Dorian, that he had drawn out of him into the painting, it was real. It had been buried under so much darkness but it was there. And he was not about to let Lord Kelso take that away again.

Basil slammed down the sharp blade against the strange, spectral chains again. This time he was able to cut through the chains with a loud clank. 'Get thee behind me, Satan!'

Dorian scrambled away from Lord Kelso to the furthest side of the attic room. He looked like the little boy he had once been, terrified, and trying to hide from the vicious blows of his Grandfather.

Basil remembered some old Christian Biblical verses. He was not sure he really believed in them but ever since he had seen Dorian's tainted portrait, when he had still been alive, he had felt the urge to play, and the desire for Dorian to pray with him, even if it was just The Lord's Prayer. But it was not The Lord's Prayer he recited now. It was another verse. It was part of the 23rd psalm.

' Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.'

The way Basil delivered it with such conviction it sounded almost as if he was commanding someone or arguing the point with someone. It vaguely reminded Dorian, for all his shock and horror at the very situation, like Lord Henry when he first told him how people die by common sense. One lost moment at a time.

The demon Kelso roared with rage but he was fading. He seemed unable to hold himself to this world without Dorian's soul infused painting for him to hide within. Where the demon had lodged himself before the painting came into existence was beyond Basil. Perhaps deeply buried in Dorian's own mind, or maybe it had transferred itself from Lord Kelso's own painting, that used to hang in the sitting room down stairs, and was now long gone. Kelso's form seemed to fade, to become translucent and finally the echoing, banshee-like wail of rage became distant as the image evaporated into nothing. Lord Kelso had finally lost Dorian Gray to goodness and light and love... forever.

Basil dropped the rapier and ran over to Dorian and wrapped his arms around him, protectively. Dorian buried his face against Basil's chest or so this might have appeared. Since both Basil and Dorian were really nothing more than collections of energy and consciousness combined it was more like the clashing of two storm clouds or two forms energy merging and mixing together.

Dorian wept against Basil. That's all it could be described as. He buried his face against him and wept. He gave himself over to Basil.

Everything Dorian had done crashed around him. What had he done? His own selfishness, fears and hatred had blinded him. Had he fallen so far? Was it too late to change? Basil had touched his soul. Love had wounded him. Dorian had, for a long time, hated the world. He had turned his heart into something made of stone. Pleasures were all he had lived for. Hedonism was all he had known. And yet Basil had just saved him. Why? Why had he saved him? He felt so ashamed. Why spare his soul? Was there really time yet to change? He had tried so hard to be a better man but the darkness had closed in around him. His own essence had felt like a whirlpool of sins. Why was goodness so very difficult and evil always so easy?

But the world he had known as Dorian Gray was not his world now. A new story had just begun as the old tale was done.

'You're safe now.' Basil said gently. 'You're safe.' He wanted to take away his pain. He wanted to comfort him and grant him a second chance. Hadn't he earned it? He deserved a little peace finally.

Dorian looked up at him with confused humility. 'Why would you save me, though?'

'Because you have earned it.'

Basil pulled Dorian to his feet.

'What now?' Dorian asked.

At first Basil was at a loss on how to answer because he, himself, was not really sure. But suddenly an immense light seemed to open up, like a large rip in the dark fabric of reality, revealing an intense light beyond. The all-consuming light was intense, and wondrous. And there was an over-whelming sense of peace and love. Understanding and acceptance. It seemed finally there was a reason for everything. And all questions would be answered after all. The light called to them both.

A beautiful sense of contentment where nothing could ever bind or hurt them again. All their grief and sorrow would at last truly be in the past. And the truth was made clear that love was the key all along. Love was the redeeming factor, the simple capacity to love another was to be in the grace of God.

'You have redeemed yourself. You have finally learned selflessness and love. You cannot undo the past, Dorian. But it's time to free yourself from it. Free yourself from the past and take control of your future. It's time to move on.'

Dorian nodded. 'I'm afraid, Basil.' He was terrified to move forward into the light. 'There are so many I... I...' He thought of Sibyl and James Vane and so many others who might be waiting on the other side and not happy to see him. He thought of everyone he had ever wronged. 'I can't bear to face them now.'

'It's all right.' Basil assured him. 'You have been forgiven...'

'I'm not ready.' Dorian said. The light was calling to him and it was so beautiful... But he had done so much wrong. Someone had to watch over Emily...

Basil placed a hand to Dorian's cheek. 'Then I'll stay here with you. Until you are ready. The light will be waiting for us.'

Basil lowered his hand.

Dorian felt a sudden warmth for Basil. Had Basil been here the whole time, waiting for him in the darkness? He wept for his forgiveness. He felt as if he had been blinded to so much and now finally understood. He had only been a boy. Basil had been so much more. Basil had been something greater than any God could have ever planned. It seemed he was something far better than a woman or a man. He was like an angel of mercy.

And now Dorian understood all that he had stolen away from him. When everything had fallen apart it seemed that Basil had been there to save him. And when they had met in London it seemed that Basil, not Lord Henry for all his charms, had shown him something beautiful and new- his own heart.

Maybe for once Dorian had something to believe in more than himself and his own luck. Maybe there really was some mystical grand design after all. Lord Henry had been wrong. Lord Henry had been wrong about so many things... Maybe this strange saga was meant to end this way.

Basil had found the goodness that Dorian himself had doubted was there. And it seemed that for all the changes that, Dorian, had been through the real stranger to himself was himself. Without Lord Henry's influence he was like a new born boy seeing for the first time though in truth he was newly deceased, wasn't he?

And he wasn't alone anymore. He was with someone that understood and forgave everything. And he would follow him for all time if he could.

He felt his guilt and shame inside of him like a knife cutting into his being. He had to let that go now. He felt as if he had failed Basil though. He felt like he had let him down. He should have loved him. He had been such a fool. One cannot control who he falls in love with or when. You cannot force yourself to feel it if you don't and you cannot force others to feel it toward you when they don't. It just sort of... happens. He had no one left to blame but himself and there was no one around to believe he was an innocent young man because of his pretty face. Basil had known the truth. Basil had saved him despite knowing the truth. He had been innocent once but he had faltered.

'Basil I-' How does one apologize to one's own murder victim and at the same time thank him for saving your soul?

Basil put a hand to what would have been Dorian's lips if they were truly physical beings. 'You don't have to say it, Dorian. You're finally as beautiful as I painted you.'

The End.


End file.
